Crossing the Threshold 2

Our resident contributor, Brian Ling aka Design Translator, will talk about his experiences as an entrepreneur and his new project Firmwareproject (FWP) that will help to showcase our local industrial design talent.

About 2 weeks ago I wrote about how I managed to “cross the threshold” and become a social entrepreneur. With the urgings of my fellow comrades at SG Entrepreneurs, I’ve decided to blog my experiences

during my 3rd go at entrepreneurship. Strangely this time I’m doing it out of love and need rather than for profit. I plan to perhaps turn this post into a series of reflections on the trials and tribulations of The Firmwareproject.

Before we go, I’ll give you my elevator pitch of my design cum social-entrepreneurship venture the Firmwareproject.

The Firmwareproject (FWP) leads a non-profit focused collective of Designers that are the best in the emerging local Singaporean Industrial Design Talent. In a creative director role, FWP will foster and nurture these talents by collaborating with them to create a range of simple, clever and edgy products with the ultimate aim of exhibiting the products at renowned Design fairs world wide. We eventually hope to be one of the pioneers to help stamp Singapore as one of the new leaders in international Industrial Design circles.

Now on to my reflections.

The day job feeds the stomach, this feeds the soul.
Many people advise to be a truly successful entrepreneur you need to quit your day job and focus on your business. This is so that you will have no safety net to fall back on and you will be determined to make the business succeed.

I humbly disagree, especially if an entrepreneurship venture feeds the soul. To me I am drawn to this somehow. The energy rises up from the bottom of my heart and I push on.

Really the venture must be something you feel passionate about and that you doing it for the right reasons. Truly a successful entrepreneur needs to be sure that what he does has to have a greater good in mind. I recently watched Guy Kawasaki’s interview of ebay founder Pierre Omidyar and found that I really can relate to Pierre’s experiences. His vision was simple, he wanted to create a means where by the consumer can get to the manufacturer of goods and bypass all the excesses caused by marketing etc. He wanted to create an “efficient market” where the seller is also the producer. Furthermore he created and coded ebay while he was still at his day job, very similar to my circumstances.

However one thing, you really need great discipline and professionalism here so that your day job and entrepreneurial effort do not clash or mix. This is easier said than done. With emails and internet access easily available in the workplace, its too easy to leave behind your responsibilities of your day job especially if the venture is what you love and rather be doing. The great thing for me is I also love my day job.

Some tips, do not use office related equipment for anything related to the venture. It’s simple respect. You respect your workplace and it comes back around to you. Next, compartmentalize your time, so that from 9am to 6pm its work related, and everything else is open season. This timing block is important as it means work comes first and you need to remember your responsibilities to your day job. This is so your work will not suffer and thus cannot give your organization a reason to probe, as what you do in your own time is your own business, no pun intended. Finally, please ensure your business is not reducing the business of your day job. Conflict of interests is a “firing” offense; if this is the case you are better off leaving your day job and run your business full time.

Business plans are only just that, plans.
All I can say is that it has been very messy after the kick-off meeting last Thursday night. Basically the objectives and goals of what I thought were clear to me were not at all to my participants. I am currently all over the place and I actually need to re-write my business plan! Furthermore the weaknesses I thought my venture had were not what I had imagined it to be!

So this leads me to advise all of you sitting on your business plan or idea, to get out there and DO it. Talk is cheap and is really theory until proven right or wrong after you do it. Also I feel the trick is to get out there and prototype your business plan and then communicate to as many people as possible to obtain feedback and see how you are going in the eyes of others. To the people who gave me feedback, you know who you are and thank you.

Wow, can I also tell you, if you need focus in your business write a one paragraph elevator pitch, like I did above. Nothing forces you to focus on the important issues faster than an elevator pitch. If you cannot reduce your business plan to a 3 minute blurb or paragraph, it’s just too complicated.